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Yesterday evening I was clearing out a drawer and came across an old spring hand-exerciser and thought it would be fun to see if I could still "press" as many as I used to. Left hand 10 reps, no problem, right hand 10 reps no problem, left again and then right but as I was finishing the second "set" with the right hand I felt a shooting pain in my middle finger and within seconds my finger was beginning to swell (not horribly just inexorably) so I rushed to the kitchen, poured frozen peas into a tea towel and squished them round the finger.

Today the finger is black/blue on the underside and top of main knuckle like a regular bruise and started the day quite stiff but is now working reasonably well.

I googled for this symptom and one site stated that a Vit C deficiency can apparently cause capillary weakness ... my worry is that something like this will reoccur or if the capillaries in the middle finger are weak does this mean other fingers are at risk.

Guess it's like all exercise. If you haven't done it for a while make sure you warm the relevant part up before going into the full exertion. If you don't then more often than not you will do yourself some harm.

in the abscence of other symptoms, it is unlikely that your are suffering from any underlying medical illness. Although never say never, it is unlikely that you are suffering from vit c deficiency.

It sounds like the first aid measures you took were a sensible option.

A word of warning. Never EVER try and find out what is wrong by searching the internet. If you look hard enough you will find something wrong ! Its almost as dangerous as posting a question on the PPRuNe medical forum.

I know this thread didn't provoke many responses but the two that did "hit the nail on the head" and the additional support I received while in chat was v helpful too. Thank you. It never occurred to me that fingers could lose muscle tone and require warming up before exercise!! Anyway, all is now back to normal and if I feel inspired to use the hand exerciser again it will, I promise, be in moderation! Have to say it was a scary episode - just wondering how to stop the finger ballooning! Will always have frozen peas/corn in freezer in future though

One other thing, if you do burst a blood vessel in your finger, make sure you remove any rings or other restrictive jewellery immediately.

This may sound daft but a very similar thing happened to my 45 year old extremely fit uncle some years back, who developed chest pains and shortness of breath over a few days until he collapsed. Taken to hospital, it was discovered that a small finger injury coupled with a tight wedding ring had trapped a small blood clot which eventually worked loose and travelled to his ticker. It was touch and go and a lot of blood thinning drugs for a couple of days but thankfully he is still with us.